Im finally beginning to understand what makes a good throw, (at lesat I think Im getting a grasp on it)

This is a fairly recent vid, I was throwing on a field in some light right->left tailwinds and all my distance throws where slight hyzers.

After seeing the vid Im trying to bring my pull down lower and lean much more forward, since I believe that the high right shoulder is making it harder for me to throw consistently nose down. To do this, Im not moving my small pre-throw swing up as high and trying to focus on keeping the disc very low when I do it. This should make it har to bring the disc up quite as high as in the vid.

I would also like to bring my hips more into the throw. IE. get a more explosive hipturn. Not sure how to go about this one though.

The way you don't turn your hips and eyes far away from the target is good for fairway drive accuracy. It also requires less body control ability and helps in concentrating on the delaying of the quick acceleration late enough in the throw.

I think you would definitely gain from bending more forward from the waist. That's much more important than keeping the right shoulder lower. Although the right shoulder should make a widened U shape in the throw for a hyzer. The lowest point being where the elbow has just passed the right side.

For usage of hips push yourself away from a wall as fast as you can by starting from leaning to the wall just touching it with your both shoulder blades. Then try a late acceleration. See how far you can go by twisting faster and faster. When you can't go any faster try to memorize that feeling. You probably won't get that while throwing without perfect form and great body control. I can't get as good execution mid throw as I do with practicing parts of form like this. This exercise should be done with the hips alone not turning the shoulders to maintain constant power generation. Once you fly away from the wall you're well on your way to better hip utilization. Power, timing of the acceleration and controlling your body.

To accentuate hip twisting you could lock your right leg immediately after planting. Really bulging your calf and especially thigh. When your right leg is immobile or allowing you to bend weight forward the momentum and left leg push combined with the hip twist will force the right leg to pivot on the ground. Because the momentum has to go somewhere and when it isn't dissipated by moving your right leg it increases the leg pivot. But the power of momentum also goes to any place where it can. Here the hip twist really benefits because locking the right leg forces the momentum to go into twisting your hips at great initial speed even without using the muscles around the hips. Add hip twist to that and you're _really_ talking of hip explosion. Think Markus Källström. Also Bradley Walker here has videos of him doing things this way. He might also have some insight to utilizing your hips. He's been doing this longer than I and It's been a back burner project for me so far despite giving me the best D I've had. I understand Bradley also has had his longest throws with this technique.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

To accentuate hip twisting you could lock your right leg immediately after planting. Really bulging your calf and especially thigh. When your right leg is immobile or allowing you to bend weight forward the momentum and left leg push combined with the hip twist will force the right leg to pivot on the ground. Because the momentum has to go somewhere and when it isn't dissipated by moving your right leg it increases the leg pivot. But the power of momentum also goes to any place where it can. Here the hip twist really benefits because locking the right leg forces the momentum to go into twisting your hips at great initial speed even without using the muscles around the hips. Add hip twist to that and you're _really_ talking of hip explosion.

I find this aspect of the throw to be difficult for me. Maybe it's because I've never did know what I was doing wrong until I recorded myself. I do find that to be a good description of how it should be done. One of things that I think help accomplish this is bending the knees more and throwing with a lower stance.

You're pivoting around your plant leg. Turn the front of your right knee into the side of your left knee. Then see if you can slowly start with the left knee and turn it into the side/back of the right knee. You'll end up pivoting the right toes to your right. You should feel some of the power those hips could generate if you do it slowly.

Now, after doing it a few times, pivot the hips in, then pivot your shoulders around. You should be facing away from a would be target. Crank those hips around and try and sync up your torso/shoulders to pick up right where your hips start to stop. That's the kind of rotational speed and power you want to put right ahead of your right pec arm acceleration.

As for footing, find a footing that allows you to be balanced and smooth when you rotate. I use a staggered stance. Also, not having a wide stance may help your balance.

It also looks like you're throwing nose up, but it might just be the angle and a hyzer throw.

If you can get more weight forward, more hip involvement and some more power and speed in the rotation, I suspect you'll add some distance.

Tip: As you increase this rotational speed, you will have a tendency to arc your arm out away from your chest when you rotate. The trick will be to keep that straight line right across your chest.

Remember to rotate over the ball of your foot if you want to maintain any knee joint for the years to come!

You know why doing this is on the back burner. My lower back is hurt. Spinal injury. I can't apply such stress safely to my back and it caps my available rotational power and spin rate on the disc

When you try to lock the right leg in place there's so much momentum going on that the muscles will tighten fully even at fairly slow stepping speeds. At least if one raises to just the toes being on the ground in the follow through and very little more contact at the hit. No run ups or the leg won't maintain position unless you've got great leg power. This leads to stepping through the throw giving little linear speed and much less rotational speed.

Staying tip toed during the throw and in the follow through didn't hurt at all. This is great for longevity because the pivot around the toes dissipates the energy from the x or shuffle step at a moderate rate stretched out over time not in a single abrupt stop like running into a wall.

One absolutely imperatively has to have as little sole to ground area as possible. If you do this kind of locked leg technique because flat footedness will try to snap your knee and ankle to pieces. Sprains and twisting joints out of place is an obvious threat. Dunno if something like this happened to Källström this year when he had a knee injury. He must have immense leg power because he seems to be way too flat footed adding tons of strain on his right leg. He may not be playing with the same form when he's old if he's able to walk without support...

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

The disc looks like it starts our mega hyzer and slowly works it's way to almost flat as your throw progresses...you should work on preserving the angle it's at, from the point of your reachback through when it leaves your hand.

I think you would definitely gain from bending more forward from the waist. That's much more important than keeping the right shoulder lower. Although the right shoulder should make a widened U shape in the throw for a hyzer.

I think dropping the right shoulder will automatically also force me come further forward.

For usage of hips push yourself away from a wall as fast as you can by starting from leaning to the wall just touching it with your both shoulder blades. Then try a late acceleration. See how far you can go by twisting faster and faster. When you can't go any faster try to memorize that feeling. You probably won't get that while throwing without perfect form and great body control. I can't get as good execution mid throw as I do with practicing parts of form like this. This exercise should be done with the hips alone not turning the shoulders to maintain constant power generation. Once you fly away from the wall you're well on your way to better hip utilization. Power, timing of the acceleration and controlling your body.

So my back is against the wall? wont I hit the wall? Not sure I quite understand this excercise.

One of things that I think help accomplish this is bending the knees more and throwing with a lower stance.

Yes, this is some og the things I want to incorporate into my throw. I would like to get a slight plant knee bend, dropping my shoulder, coming further forward and have my swingplane lower.

Looks good, how far you throwing?

I cant remember for this specific shot, but as I said I was throwing slight hyzers in a slight cross tailwind, so the distance is not really indicative of real world performance. I had a couple of throws that went a US footballfield + 20-30 paces.

Also, how do you get your body to follow thru like that!?

Not sure I quite understand what you mean?

You're pivoting around your plant leg. Turn the front of your right knee into the side of your left knee. Then see if you can slowly start with the left knee and turn it into the side/back of the right knee.

Im sorry, but I dont understand this at all, could you please clarify? Why would I try to turn the front side of right knee into the side of my left knee?

The disc looks like it starts our mega hyzer and slowly works it's way to almost flat as your throw progresses...you should work on preserving the angle it's at, from the point of your reachback through when it leaves your hand. The disc looks like it starts our mega hyzer and slowly works it's way to almost flat as your throw progresses...you should work on preserving the angle it's at, from the point of your reachback through when it leaves your hand.

Yes I can see that, it will probably be one of the last things on my winter to do list, since hitting the different angles usually isnt a problem. With the exception of a slight anhyzer (1-5 degrees). But this is in my mind always a tough angle to hit.

And last thank you all for your comments, they will definitly be incorporated into my winter training regimen

Start with both of your shoulder blades touching a wall. When you twist your hips your left shoulder blade will depart. The right one will push you forward away from the wall shortly thereafter. The faster you can twist with your hips the more force you'll generate and eventually you'll be flying away from the wall.

For not presenting correctly meaning starting with mega hyzer turning to flat at the hit try to always start with handshaking position in front of you when you grip the disc. Check visually that the place in the wrist where you take the pulse is vertical for flat releases and so on. As your wrist is about to uncurl begin tensing up your fingers and wrist to maintain the disc in the initial angle. With early enough of a start without locking the wrist in the bent back position (correct timing and amount of force) you should be able to both snap with good power and maintain the original angles in the disc.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

3. Guide the disc down the line until the disc comes out as your arm is forced to travel away from the line.

There are two sections to a throw (or swing). The linear pull and the rotation. In the simplest terms, the best throwers blend these two individual motions into one perfectly timed unit (from a linear pull to a rotary spin). Most people do too much of one and not enough of the other and at the wrong time.

It is has the APPEARANCE of:

PULLLLLOPEN!

The disc will snap out at the transition.

You have all your emphasis in the linear portion, and you are not pulling hard into the rotation. In fact your hips and shoulders are square to the line for an alarming period of time after you start the pull.

The trick is that you must pull the disc forward by actually opening your body... So, in effect you are actually simply opening, and your body does not see the linear section. The disc pull is only linear due to lag.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. The unreasonable man adapts his environment to himself, therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men."-George Bernard Shaw

Bradley has discussed this before, and it's really been clicking for me lately. I have 2 comments from my experience of focusing on this:

1. The key to this is late accelleration, right through a complete follow through - even on shorter shots - which causes the disc to eject from your hand of its own accord at the right time and with good snap.

2. This is the surest way to achieve consistent accuracy - it takes the element of intentional steering out of the throw (which is subject to breaking down when faced with a stressful shot or situation), and makes it a purely mechanical process where the disc always leaves your hand on your line at the point where the straight line meets the arc.

I sometimes fall of this, as I focus on other elements, but every time I "re-learn" this, I am astounded at my confidence for hitting tight gaps, and at the distance to effort ratio as well.

black udder wrote:You're pivoting around your plant leg. Turn the front of your right knee into the side of your left knee. Then see if you can slowly start with the left knee and turn it into the side/back of the right knee. You'll end up pivoting the right toes to your right. You should feel some of the power those hips could generate if you do it slowly.

Now, after doing it a few times, pivot the hips in, then pivot your shoulders around. You should be facing away from a would be target. Crank those hips around and try and sync up your torso/shoulders to pick up right where your hips start to stop. That's the kind of rotational speed and power you want to put right ahead of your right pec arm acceleration.

I think I have finally understood clearing the hip, from the information here and from Blake's drawing in one of the other threads.

I have been practicing delaying the pull and focusing on opening the hips faster and earlier. Doing both at the same time and finishing strong are impossible for me atm. I dont think they are physically impossible, but separating your hip pivot and pull into two different thought processes and focusing on one and both at the same time, is really hard.

I wish I had a huge mirror wall to practice the x-step sequence with the complete finish. (Without throwing a disc) I think this would make it much easier getting this down